View source for Hygeburg

{{Short description|Anglo-Saxon nun and hagiographer}}
[[File:MS Clm 1086 - f.71v.jpg|thumb|Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 1086, folio 71v, includes the cipher with Hygeburg's name.]]

'''Hygeburg''' (''[[floruit]]'' 760–780), also '''Hugeburc''', '''Hugeberc''', '''Huneberc''' or '''Huneburc''', was an [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] [[nun]] and [[hagiographer]] at the [[Duchy of Alemannia|Alemannian]] monastery of [[Heidenheim, Bavaria|Heidenheim]]. She is "the first known Englishwoman to have written a full-length literary work"<ref name=ODNB>{{ODNB|title=Hugeburc|author=Carolyne Larrington|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/49413}}</ref> and "the only woman author of a saint's life from the Carolingian period".<ref name=SoC>Huneberc of Heidenheim (C. H. Talbot, trans.), "The Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald", in Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head, eds., ''Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saints' Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages'' (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), pp. 141–42.</ref>

Heidenheim was founded as a monastery for monks in 752 by [[Wynnebald]], an Anglo-Saxon from [[Wessex]].<ref name=ODNB/> On his death in 761, his sister [[Saint Walpurga|Walburg]] inherited it and converted it into a [[double monastery]] with the introduction of nuns.<ref name=ODNB/> Hygeburg was among those who came to Heidenheim immediately after Wynnebald's death.<ref name=ODNB/> Probably she had already been in Germany for some time, one of the nuns summoned by [[Boniface]].<ref name=ODNB/>

Hygeburg was, in her own words, "a humble relative" of Wynnebald, Walburg and their brother, [[Willibald]].<ref name=ODNB/> On Tuesday, 23 June 778, while he was visiting Heidenheim, Willibald dictated to Hygeburg an account of his pilgrimage to the [[Holy Land]] in the 720s<ref name=SoC/> or 730s.<ref name=ODNB/> She subsequently worked this account into a biography of Willibald,<ref name=ODNB/> called the ''Hodoeporicon'' ("relation of a voyage").<ref name=SoC/> (The conventional name ''Vita Willibaldi'', "Life of Willibald", was given to it by editors.<ref>Maribel Dietz, ''Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterranean World, A.D. 300–800'' (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), p. 209 n85.</ref>) From her choice of phrase and motif, she must have had access to the ''[[Carmen paschale]]'', the ''[[Vita Bonifatii]]'' and the riddles of [[Aldhelm]].<ref name=ODNB/>

Although there was opposition to her writing within the convent, Walburg encouraged it. Hygeburg also wrote a biography of Wynnebald, the ''Vita Wynnebaldi''.<ref name=ODNB/> Although her two works were a single project, completed by 780, they are textually distinct, indicating her use of oral reports and eyewitness testimony.<ref name=ODNB/> She was herself a witness to some of the post-mortem miracles she attributes to Wynnebald's intervention.<ref name=ODNB/>

The name of the nun who wrote the lives of Willibald and Wynnebald was not known until in 1931 [[Bernhard Bischoff]] discovered it in a [[cryptogram]] in the oldest manuscript (from c. 800).<ref name=ODNB/>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Lapidge, M., "Hygeburg", in M. Lapidge et al., ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England.'' Blackwell, 1999. {{ISBN|0-631-22492-0}}

== External links ==
*[[Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society]] (1891):  ''[https://archive.org/details/cu31924028534257 The hodæporicon of Saint Willibald]''  (ca 754 AD) by Roswida
* {{PASE|1223|Hygeburg 1}}
* [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/willibald.html Huneberc of Heidenheim: The Hodoeporican of St. Willibald, 8th Century] at the [[Internet Medieval Sourcebook]]
{{Medieval travelogues of Palestine}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Anglo-Saxon nuns]]
[[Category:Anglo-Saxon writers]]
[[Category:8th-century women writers]]
[[Category:8th-century English writers]]
[[Category:8th-century English nuns]]
[[Category:8th-century Christian nuns]]
[[Category:8th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:8th-century Frankish writers]]